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This isn't true. Shootings are very, very rare. And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the countr

This isn't true. Shootings are very, very rare. And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the country that aren't these places have vanishingly small probabilities of being hurt by a shooting. Gun murders in the U.S. are a very low percentage of deaths (0.39%) and preventable deaths (~1.1%, there's some disagreement about what's "preventable"). That's 0.0036% of the population per year gun-murdered. That this statistic is 3x some other country's is irrelevant because 3x a small number is still a small number. If your goal is to prevent untimely deaths, focus on boring things like falls, car accidents, and diabetes.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>. And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the country that aren't these places have vanishingly small probabilities of being hurt by a shooting. And even then they are basically concentrated around illegal parts of the economy. Drug traffickers, pimps, etc. can't use the courts and the police so when it comes to settling disputes they have to DIY their own threats of violence that other people usually outsource to the state.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  This is an interesting thought. Sounds correct to me. It seems like ending the War on Drugs would be a conceptually simple way of fixing most of this.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    It's a big factor; legalizing soft drugs and managing hard drugs (like methadone clinics) will definitely help. Social safety nets to help prevent people going poor. Quality education for everyone. Quality housing for everyone. There's a lot of things the US can do to massively improve the quality of life for everyone, it just means funneling some of the trillions it puts into the military and "the economy" (like the trillion that vaporized within minutes last march) elsewhere. I mean they can solve a lot of people's problems with a trillion dollars.
- watwut 6y ago
  Afaik, personal conflict and relationships are most common reasons for murders. It is less likely to be business nowdays and more likely that someone violent with poor impulse control got angry at friend again.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
    This was my understanding too
est31 6y ago
> And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the country that aren't these places have vanishingly small probabilities of being hurt by a shooting. I said "many places" not "all places". Indeed, shootings are concentrated to a few areas with high crime rates. Doesn't mean that people living in those areas don't have to watch out. I replied to an anecdote about people living close to such a tavern having to watch out. As for gun murders being a rare death cause, indeed if you average over all age ranges they are. However, for younger people they are a major concern. CDC data [0] lists homicides in the top 4 reasons for death for age groups from 1 until 35. Which weapons are used for these homicides? A different statistic tells us most times it's guns [1]. And yes, focusing on falls, car accidents and diabetes would be awesome. But preventing gun deaths is important too. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2016-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_dea... [1]: 6.4k murder victims in 2019 from handguns, 3.3k from unspecified firearms, 1.5k from knives or cutting instruments, all other causes below 1k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in...
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  > I said "many places" not "all places"... Doesn't mean that people living in those areas don't have to watch out. I agree that there is some non-zero number of people in the U.S. who have to watch out for gun murder. The point I'm trying to make is that they make up a really small proportion of the population. Anecdotes are fun. > As for gun murders being a rare death cause, indeed if you average over all age ranges they are. However, for younger people they are a major concern. CDC data [0] lists homicides in the top 4 reasons for death for age groups from 1 until 35. Which weapons are used for these homicides? A different statistic tells us most times it's guns [1]. You're right that, among untimely deaths, gun murders move up the ranking if you're looking at young people. But this misses the main thing, which is that untimely deaths of any kind are super rare among young people, even rarer than overall. Why should we care if gun murders make up 50% of untimely deaths among young people if the likelihood of untimely death is sufficiently low? Your line of reasoning seems to indicate a 10% chance of untimely death with 1 percentage point of that being gun murder is preferable to a 1% chance of untimely death with 0.5 percentage points of that being gun murder. As an aside, thinking about this (and many other things) in terms of ordinal rankings will often lead you down the wrong path. "Top four reasons" tells us nothing at all. If there are 5,000 categories constructed and they are roughly evenly distributed, "top four" tells us nothing. If 99% of the probability mass is in #1, "top four" tells us nothing. It's like the classic "The U.S. is [embarassingly] #44 in math achievement". This means nothing if the top 80 countries are tightly clustered around 98 math achievement points. > But preventing gun deaths is important too. My point is that it isn't important. There are much, much bigger fish to fry from a public health perspective. The marginal benefit of throwing one dollar at "gun violence" is << the marginal benefit of throwing that same buck at something like trying to get construction workers to wear proper safety harnesses.
watwut 6y ago
Aren't rural areas also the ones with more murders per capita and more shooting deaths, mostly due to large prevalence of guns and bad economic situation? As in, the urban ghetto is often stated, but rural parts do come up in stats quite a lot too.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>. And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the country that aren't these places have vanishingly small probabilities of being hurt by a shooting. And even then they are basically concentrated around illegal parts of the economy. Drug traffickers, pimps, etc. can't use the courts and the police so when it comes to settling disputes they have to DIY their own threats of violence that other people usually outsource to the state.

NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
This is an interesting thought. Sounds correct to me. It seems like ending the War on Drugs would be a conceptually simple way of fixing most of this.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's a big factor; legalizing soft drugs and managing hard drugs (like methadone clinics) will definitely help. Social safety nets to help prevent people going poor. Quality education for everyone. Quality housing for everyone. There's a lot of things the US can do to massively improve the quality of life for everyone, it just means funneling some of the trillions it puts into the military and "the economy" (like the trillion that vaporized within minutes last march) elsewhere. I mean they can solve a lot of people's problems with a trillion dollars.
watwut 6y ago
Afaik, personal conflict and relationships are most common reasons for murders. It is less likely to be business nowdays and more likely that someone violent with poor impulse control got angry at friend again.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  This was my understanding too

est31 6y ago

> And they are concentrated in certain types of places (e.g., poor urban ghetto) such that the parts of the country that aren't these places have vanishingly small probabilities of being hurt by a shooting. I said "many places" not "all places". Indeed, shootings are concentrated to a few areas with high crime rates. Doesn't mean that people living in those areas don't have to watch out. I replied to an anecdote about people living close to such a tavern having to watch out. As for gun murders being a rare death cause, indeed if you average over all age ranges they are. However, for younger people they are a major concern. CDC data [0] lists homicides in the top 4 reasons for death for age groups from 1 until 35. Which weapons are used for these homicides? A different statistic tells us most times it's guns [1]. And yes, focusing on falls, car accidents and diabetes would be awesome. But preventing gun deaths is important too. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2016-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_dea... [1]: 6.4k murder victims in 2019 from handguns, 3.3k from unspecified firearms, 1.5k from knives or cutting instruments, all other causes below 1k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in...

NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
> I said "many places" not "all places"... Doesn't mean that people living in those areas don't have to watch out. I agree that there is some non-zero number of people in the U.S. who have to watch out for gun murder. The point I'm trying to make is that they make up a really small proportion of the population. Anecdotes are fun. > As for gun murders being a rare death cause, indeed if you average over all age ranges they are. However, for younger people they are a major concern. CDC data [0] lists homicides in the top 4 reasons for death for age groups from 1 until 35. Which weapons are used for these homicides? A different statistic tells us most times it's guns [1]. You're right that, among untimely deaths, gun murders move up the ranking if you're looking at young people. But this misses the main thing, which is that untimely deaths of any kind are super rare among young people, even rarer than overall. Why should we care if gun murders make up 50% of untimely deaths among young people if the likelihood of untimely death is sufficiently low? Your line of reasoning seems to indicate a 10% chance of untimely death with 1 percentage point of that being gun murder is preferable to a 1% chance of untimely death with 0.5 percentage points of that being gun murder. As an aside, thinking about this (and many other things) in terms of ordinal rankings will often lead you down the wrong path. "Top four reasons" tells us nothing at all. If there are 5,000 categories constructed and they are roughly evenly distributed, "top four" tells us nothing. If 99% of the probability mass is in #1, "top four" tells us nothing. It's like the classic "The U.S. is [embarassingly] #44 in math achievement". This means nothing if the top 80 countries are tightly clustered around 98 math achievement points. > But preventing gun deaths is important too. My point is that it isn't important. There are much, much bigger fish to fry from a public health perspective. The marginal benefit of throwing one dollar at "gun violence" is << the marginal benefit of throwing that same buck at something like trying to get construction workers to wear proper safety harnesses.

watwut 6y ago

Aren't rural areas also the ones with more murders per capita and more shooting deaths, mostly due to large prevalence of guns and bad economic situation? As in, the urban ghetto is often stated, but rural parts do come up in stats quite a lot too.